Greetings all! Long time no see! (It's that time of year again - the one where I rise from the dead and pop my head back in here )

Recently I've been looking for books in Japanese. In particular, I'm looking for 道ありき by 三浦 綾子 and いま、会いにゆきます by 市川 拓司 . I checked the obvious places, such as Amazon Japan, but shipping is outrageous! It would cost me $30 to ship a $5 book! So, I'm looking for alternatives. Are there any US distributors of Japanese books with cheaper shipping? Or perhaps somewhere with discounted shipping?

CajunCoder wrote:I checked the obvious places, such as Amazon Japan, but shipping is outrageous! It would cost me $30 to ship a $5 book!

What I do if I have to order from amazon.co.jp is wait until I have to buy maybe $100 worth of stuff and just buy it all at once. That way the shipping relative to the cost of each item becomes much smaller.

Anyway, you can try YesAsia. I haven't looked there very much, so I have no idea what its selection is like, but maybe they'll have something useful.

Steps:1: Find major city (San Francisco works well)2: Drive there3: Find "Japan Town" (note the fact that street signs are now written in two languages that you kind of understand)4: Go to book store and buy books5: Repeat as necessary...

(I don't know what to do if you don't live within 100 miles of a city at least the size of San Francisco...)(Note to self get someone else to drive me to San Francisco (Amtrak=EXPENSIVE). (never drive a car with a manual transmission in San Francisco))(Note to self this post might not be useful for the OP apologise)

Thanks everyone. I finally went with bk1 and used SAL economy air mail - it was only $10/pound! However, I don't get a tracking number, and it will take anywhere between 1 week and 2 months to get my package in

CajunCoder wrote:Thanks everyone. I finally went with bk1 and used SAL economy air mail - it was only $10/pound! However, I don't get a tracking number, and it will take anywhere between 1 week and 2 months to get my package in